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Altruism is highest in American states with high well-being





Altruism – selfless acts of kindness – is highest in American states with high well-being.

Psychological scientists Abigail Marsh and Kristin Brethel-Haurwitz of Georgetown University conducted a study on altruism in 2016. The findings are published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

Researchers Marsh and Brethel-Haurwitz wanted to test their hypothesis that altruism might have something to do with subjective well-being, given that well-being is associated with other pro-social behaviours, including volunteering and charitable giving.

To explore a possible link, the researchers used kidney donation data from the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network and nationally representative well-being data from the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index.

They used information on kidney donation because 11% to 54% of adults say that they’d be willing to consider altruistic kidney donation, but only a tiny fraction of them actually become donors, said the researchers. “Our work suggests that subjective well-being may be a factor that ‘nudges’ some adults into actually donating.”

Non-directed kidney donation is unique, says Marsh, because it meets the most stringent criteria for altruism. People willingly choose to donate their kidney to someone they aren’t related to, someone they don’t even know — and the process of donating requires considerable time, and the risk of experiencing serious discomfort and pain.

Just as they predicted, the data revealed a positive relationship between altruistic kidney donation and well-being. The states in America with higher per capita donation rates tended to have higher levels of well-being. The positive link was also evident when the researchers combined states into nine broader geographic regions, and also when they examined the data for a single year (2010).

Together, these findings suggest that well-being is not just linked to pro-social behaviours, like charitable giving, but may also promote genuine altruism.

Importantly, the link remained even after regional variation in several other factors – such as household income, age, education, and mental and physical health – were accounted for. And the link wasn’t explained by specific cultural factors either, including regional levels of religiosity or collectivist attitudes.

The findings have clear implications for public health. “Kidney disease is now the 8th leading cause of death in the US, and living kidney donations are the best hope for restoring people to health who have kidney disease,” says Marsh. “Understanding the dynamics that lead to this kind of donation might help increase the numbers of donations, which currently are in decline.”

The link between well-being and altruism may be particularly important in light of increased focus on policies that focus on societal level well-being, above and beyond economic well-being. “Given that altruism itself promotes well-being, policies that promote well-being may help to generate a virtuous circle whereby increases in well-being promote altruism that, in turn, increases well-being,” Brethel-Haurwitz and Marsh conclude.

Hence if the cycle of altruism and well-being are linked, then states and countries with high well-being are likely to be volunteer and donate more time and money, thus leading to the well-being of others – and so the cycle goes on.

http://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/releases/altruistic-acts-more-common-in-states-with-high-well-being.html#.WFYOA7S6E6g


MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).
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